Gitmo Fried Chicken

It’s always sad when a nincompoop congressman who has no idea that he’s a nincompoop will, to defend his party, say some truly idiotic things about subjects he knows nothing about. Congressman Duncan Hunter (R-CA) started his week by giving a press conference to defend the administration’s position on the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay, and he did so by displaying to the media the dishes that the inmates eat (he referred to the detainees as Osama’s bodyguards, which will probably come as a surprise to bin Laden’s real bodyguards who seem to have done a pretty good job of protecting him so far). What’s sadder though is that on Tuesday night, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, in an interview with Sir David Frost on the BBC, repeated part of the congressman’s presentation. (He also admitted that the U.S. “is notably unskilful in our communications and our public diplomacy”. Presumably including yours and the congressman’s, Mr. Secretary.)

The congressman had described the conditions at the detention facility as almost idyllic; an idyll he did not fail to point out was being paid for by you, me, and his constituents back in California. Showing the press what the meals look like (I haven’t heard any reports of what they smell, or taste like) is not in itself such a bad idea, and I’m interested to know that the inmates basically eat chicken all time. But he closed his presentation with the following: “So the point is that the inmates in Guantanamo have never eaten better, they've never been treated better and they've never been
more comfortable in their lives."

Donald Rumsfeld, seemingly only slightly less delusional, claimed to Sir David that “The people in Gitmo....99% have the best food probably, the best medical treatment, they’ve ever received in their lives.”

So the other 1% might have eaten at Daniel Boulud’s or Joachim Splichal’s places at some point, then. But what’s this obsession with the prisoners’ food? Even if the chicken’s great, I’m sure they’d prefer a good lamb kebab or a decent curry with Basmati rice, but that’s not the point. What the congressman and Mr. Rumsfeld fail to understand is that it’s not the food or even the jail conditions that are the paramount issues here. Prove they’re terrorists and a danger to society and feed them fried rats and cut off the A/C, for all I care. Americans and the rest of the world don’t really spend much time worrying about the dishes at the local prison (unless Martha Stewart is eating them), nor do we care that much if a convicted prisoner isn’t sleeping on Pratesi linen or has a bad HMO. We do, however, care if the prisoner might be innocent. Or if his most basic human rights aren’t respected, such as the right to know what he’s allegedly done, when he’s going to be tried, and how much time he’s going to have to spend in jail.

It’s not only the allegations of torture or mistreatment of prisoners that makes people want Gitmo closed, Messrs. Rumsfeld and Hunter. It’s that the place is just un-American, despite the fried chicken.